Talk:The Brotherhood of Eternal Love/Archive 1

Sacraments and OR
"Many of the Brotherhood's members were deeply religious people who viewed marijuana and "acid" as sacraments."

No evidence is given to support this statement, so I'm removing it from the article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.156.108.183 (talk) 18:33, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

This article is a lot longer than a stub, so I removed those templates and am changing its rating on the quality scale. --Steve Foerster (talk) 01:01, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

'Sinebot' above should not have taken out the passage about spirituality, drugs and sacrament. It is absolutely true and I saw it firsthand.


 * Personal experince is considered Original Research and is not in accordance with Wikipedia guidelines. All references must be cited in published works. JMax555 (talk) 06:54, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Actually many of the Brotherhood came from the Buena Park area of southern california. Many were very spiritual and viewed the use of psychedelics as sacraments, and went through an entire preparatory process of fasting and meditation before they used them, pretty much as Leary had suggested before he went off on his crazy tangent. They often went way out into nature, like climbing up Tacquitz Falls in Palm Springs, to have their sessions. The idea that a bunch of armed thugs infiltrated the bortherhood in the last 60's is not true as far as I know. That may have happened in the '70's, but they were probably wannabees. The core Bortherhood was NOT into guns and violence. I grew up with many of the key people in the Brotherhood--we surfed together, they guided me in a few sessions. While I think they eventually got off track as any drug based pursuit does, they also guided thousands of people in psychhedelic sessions and showed them how to have profound spiritual experiences in those sessions--and much of that had positive effects. Many of those people they guided experienced profound insights that changed their lives, and many let go of the drug thing and went on to live productive lives. I could write a way better article on this than you have in Wikipedia, but haven't go0t the time at the moment. I think the Brotherhood was a mixed thing--there were very good parts, and very bad parts. The thing with psychedelics back in ther '60's is you have to know when to quit them and walk away and get on with life. . .I think many guys in the Brotherhood didn't, and that was their downfall--plus all the money coming in from dealing LSD and hashish. That kind of messes you up. There are many colorful tales of these guys though--some on the edge of what is possible. A few of them carried true power like Don Juan of Castaneda's books. They weren't just a bunch of dumb thugs from Compton--that is a pipe dream. The guys I knew were good guys. . . not your hard core drug lords at all, but very mystical, very easy going people. The story of how it all got strated is quite juicy, but I have to run. If Wikipedia contacts me, I'll write a way better and truer article than what they have got.Dancingphoenix (talk) 17:42, 12 January 2009 (UTC)dancingphoenix

Cleanup
This article has recently been cleaned up to remove original research and unreferenced material. Further addition of unreferenced material may be deleted without notice. Manning (talk) 23:53, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

User:Wa-passage
In reference to this user page from a new user, and a message left on my talk page, of course we welcome expansion. But, as I think is clear now, such material needs to be based on reliable, published sources. For instance, the accounts of original members, no matter how truthful they may be, count as primary sources (unless they're published in a reliable source), and Wikipedia articles need to be based on secondary sources. (See WP:PRIMARY.) One may consider the article to be "marginally factual," but its factuality is based on the sources given--that is the way this system operates. If the accounts in High Times are not accurate, that's a different issue (though not an unimportant one): it cannot simply be replaced by, for instance, the recollection of one of the group's members. BTW, I am not able to find a Facebook page for "The church of the sleeping angel", but let me note, for the sake of redundancy, that Facebook pages and messages cannot count as reliable sources. Happy editing, Drmies (talk) 14:48, 27 January 2012 (UTC) - Thanks for the thoughtful reply, Drmies. I understand (now) about the need for verifiability -- and thus of reliance on secondary, rather than primary sources. My access to THE primary sources for this particular topic, however, gives me some insight into the nature of the organization, and its aspirations and goals, aside from running drugs. This is well documented in Nick Schou's Orange Sunshine book, but often is often given short shrift in more superficial accounts (perhaps including the High Times article; I'd have to re-read it). I'd like to re-incorporate the material that illustrates this, and the basic outline of the formation of the group, and probably some additional material about an infamous art gallery / 'head shop' owned and operated by the group. I'll do my best to cite secondary sources for this information, perhaps at the paragraph level, if that seems appropriate...

I'm hoping that you and your colleagues will review this material and only remove anything that you find to be genuinely unattributable...

Can you let me know how to send you a private message, btw? Wa-passage (talk) 07:10, 28 January 2012 (UTC) - - Thanks for the prompt reply. The High Times story that's referenced in the Wikipedia article. Case Closed on “Hippie Mafia” Smugglers is a good example of the "short shrift" I referred to above. The 'angle' of the story is very much the business operations of the Brotherhood: producing LSD and running hashish from Afghanistan to the US. Author Schou also notes, if only in passing, that...
 * Well, whatever is properly verified is acceptable. There is mention of the shop in the High Times article, so that can be fine to add. I prefer to keep conversations on-wiki, if you don't mind. Thank you, Drmies (talk) 05:44, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
 * "Many of them were street thugs or heroin addicts but who after dropping acid, found a new sense of spiritual purpose, adopted Eastern religious teachings, became vegetarians, and swore themselves off violence. At the behest of the group's leader, John Griggs, they befriended Timothy Leary with the aim of transforming the world into a peaceful utopia by promoting consciousness-expanding drug experimentation through LSD, including their famous homemade acid, Orange Sunshine."

Schou develops this aspect of the story more fully in his book Orange Sunshine (chs 2 and 3 in particular). I'd like to re-incorporate that part of the story into the article, as well as the brief sketch of the formation of the group. Wa-passage (talk) 08:39, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

POV edits continue, article re-protected
After the recent expiration of protection, WP:COI and WP:SPA editor has rewritten this page to be a cited but highly POV article in what seems to be an attempt to glorify this group's activities in the context of this "unreleased documentary". His/her first edit removing the Criminal organization infobox sets the tone. Given the history here of alleged threats of violence against wiki-editors, the whitewashing that appears to be going on and the multiple editors' COI, I've fully protected the article and restored the more neutral version last edited by. Please discuss neutral and verifiable proposed changes here. Toddst1 (talk) 13:06, 31 January 2012 (UTC) Correction: Apparently the documentary has been out for a while, but there's a new book that's causing the flurry of POV edits, attempting to spin/glorify the group.
 * I agree. It's unfortunate, but it has to be done. Drmies (talk) 22:41, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Note to anyone reviewing this page's protection: Members of this criminal organization and their associates appear to be making these edits and have apparently threatened real-world violence against each other as a method of resolving their on-wiki dispute about this article. See Administrators%27_noticeboard/IncidentArchive737. If this resumes when the protection expires or is lifted, I strongly recommend restoring full protection on the article for another long period if not indefinitely. Toddst1 (talk) 13:14, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Reliable sources
The book, Orange Sunshine does not appear to be a neutral, independent reliable source. Just because it's been published in a book doesn't mean it's an accurate representation. The statement about truth seekers is clearly an exceptional claim which requires exceptional sources and in fact, pretty well establishes the the book being nothing close to a reliable source.

Let me give you an example: I'm sure you could find a book say Jews are the cause of all economic problems. I'm sure there are many folks who swear that's true. However, to make such a statement in Economy of the United States citing that book is going to require a heck of a lot more than just that book saying so. Make sense? Toddst1 (talk) 14:00, 2 February 2012 (UTC) The 2 paragraphs above were posted on User talk:Wa-passage and are posted here for relevance. Please note that I harbor no antisemitic feelings, rather use the reference to the Jews to illustrate the ability to point out the ability to push an extreme POV by citing poor quality sources. For more information, see the essay, Join Wikipedia!. Toddst1 (talk) 23:09, 9 February 2012 (UTC) ---

Thanks for the considerate reply. Your analogy, "Jews are the cause of all economic problems." is apt and helpful. This statement could probably be safely rejected as a gross simplification, at best. Even if there might be some evidence to support it, it's extremely unlikely that the truth could be so simple. There's more to the story of the economic problems, surely -- just as well as there's surely more to the story of your example group than "the cause of all economic problems."

I am also attempting to avoid this kind of simplistic description. Rather than branding the Brotherhood group monochromatically as nothing more than "a group that wanted to use, manufacture and sell illegal drugs." I hope we can relate a more complete story, which author Steven Hager sums up succinctly:


 * "They weren't just a smuggling organization, they were a religious movement." Brotherhood of Eternal Love

There's more to this part of the story than just "a religious movement", but I quote it to suggest a more-inclusive approach to this article, and to quote someone other than Nicholas Schou, since his book seems to have fallen suspect for its statement about truth seekers -- temporarily, I hope. It's by far the most accurate and in-depth account I've read to date.

Another potential source of information is the group's with the State of California, in which they state their objective:


 * "To bring to the world a great awareness of God through the teachings of Jesus Christ, Buddha, Ramakrishna, Babaji, Paramahansa Yogananda, Mahatma Ghandi, and all true prophets and apostles of God, and to spread the love and wisdom of these great teachers to all men..."

- Acid Dreams, p237, Martin A. Lee and Bruce Shlain, 1985 [reported also in Tendler and May's The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, and in Schou's Orange Sunshine ]

Lee and Shlain continue (same page)...


 * "The Brothers employed acid as a communal sacrament, hoping eventually to obtain legal permission to expand their consciousness through chemicals in much the same way that the Indians of the Native America Church used peyote."

...and from Tendler and May's The Brotherhood of Eternal Love:


 * "Hollingshead, the man who had given Leary his first LSD experience, had returned from Britain and joined Leary in Laguna. The Brotherhood felt they were leading a new society, he remembered. California was the country of the future. It was as if the culture had entered into them. They were responding. Righteous dealing was a sacrament, with Tim as their guru. I have always found them very gracious people, very honest, very wise, but also very naive. It was the Dead-end Kids who took acid and fell in love with beauty. The Brothers were making money out of dealing, but Hollingshead said: Griggs was not thinking in those terms. He was only thinking of getting the psychedelics on the streets so that people could take them."

I am not trying to convince you, or Wikipedia readers, that the Brotherhood was not also a criminal drug-smuggling operation. I am trying to convince you that you've covered that critical aspect of the story fairly well, but have so far declined to admit the rest of the story, which is also a critical piece: the origins of the group, their original intentions, their early activities, and perhaps some indication of how their initial wide-eyed idealism slipped away from them. Without this material the article could be considered simplistic, one dimensional, incomplete, and ultimately misleading.

I'd further request that Schou's Orange Sunshine book be considered a neutral, independent reliable source. You've cited the inclusion of the statement about truth seekers as "clearly an exceptional claim", and suggest that the book is suspect simply for that claim. I hope that the material I've quoted above will help you see that it's not an exceptional claim, but is consistent with accounts from other authors.

Regarding "the history here of alleged threats of violence against wiki-editors". The complete history is: one threat, made to one wiki-editor (me). The threat was not made on Wikipedia, and was made by one individual, and nothing has come of it. I suggest that this is not germane to our discussion of the article.

Regarding the claim "...seems to be an attempt to glorify this group's activities in the context of this "unreleased documentary". " ... Is there any basis for this claim whatsoever? I'm aware of this documentary, but have no involvement in it professionally or otherwise. Please either substantiate this accusation, or omit it from our discussion, going forward.... Wa-passage (talk) 08:08, 4 February 2012 (UTC)


 * I suggest that you try making a case for Orange Sunshine being a reliable source at the Reliable Sources Noticeboard. Also, could you please stop separating comments with a line, it makes the discussion rather difficult to read? Instead, the common method here is to use increasing amounts of indentation, which are created by beginning your comment with colons: the more colons, the more indentation. Beyond My Ken (talk) 17:59, 5 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Toddst1: Would you please reply to my message above, which I wrote to you on the 4th - four days ago...?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wa-passage (talk • contribs) 09:38, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I think Beyond My Ken's answer says it pretty well. In addition the Articles of Incorporation is what we call a WP:Primary Source - not very reliable. Toddst1 (talk) 14:43, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Timoth Leary's prison break
U would like to have the following appended to the article as a new section:

"In 1970 The Brotherhood of Eternal Love hired the terrorist organization Weather Underground for a fee of $25,000 to break drug activist Timothy Leary out of prison, where he served a 5-year sentence for possession of several joints of marijuana."

__meco (talk) 22:04, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

I added a reflist and corrected the youtube ref. mabdul 19:09, 5 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Well, that isn't correct. That list contains a duplicate. __meco (talk) 20:48, 5 March 2012 (UTC)
 * I fixed the dupe, cleaned up the passage with some minor copyedit and made the change requested. Toddst1 (talk) 14:56, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Conflicting info on Weather Underground page
This page says the Brotherhood of Eternal Love paid the Weather Underground $25,000 for Leary's jailbreak, but the Weather Underground page says $20,000. Air (talk) 19:49, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Weather Underground and Timothy Leary

 * More clarity is needed here. There were several competing explanations for the source of the funding used to break-out Timothy Leary and transport him to Algeria.  One was the Brotherhood of Eternal Love, active throughout the West Coast.  Another source of funds is alleged to have been donated by an internationally-renowned folksinger in southern California.  Still another is funds and vehicles supplied by Matthew Landy Steen, who later appeared on CBS 60 Minutes in 1977 with Dan Rather and Mike Wallace.


 * Next, Weather Underground is not recognized as a terrorist organization. This nomenclature only came into widespread use to describe domestic political groups and individuals after the rise of the Unabomber in the 1980s.  Even the Symbionese Liberation Army was not described as terrorist, even though they were far deadlier in its own time than Weather ever was.  See Wiki discussion on this topic on talk pages for WUO.

BOE definitely needs a neutral approach and those primary sources need to write memoirs or sourced books or materials.Weathervane13 02:31, 10 June 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Weathervane13 (talk • contribs)
 * Weatherman/ Weather Underground was referred to in its own time and afterwards as "terrorist,". No byline, UPI wire story, "Weathermen Got Name From Song: Groups Latest Designation Is Weather Underground", as published in The New York Times, January 30, 1975: "On Jan. 19, 1971, Bernardine Dohrn, a leading Weatherperson who has never been caught, issued a statement from hiding suggesting that the group was considering tactics other than bombing and terrorism."; Montgomery, Paul L., "Guilty Plea Entered in 'Village' Bombing: Cathy Wilkerson Could Be Given Probation or Up to 7 Years", article, The New York Times, July 19, 1980: "the terrorist Weather Underground"; Powers, Thomas, and Franks, Lucinda, "Diana: The Making of a Terrorist," UPI, news feature series and winner of the Pulitzer Prize; September 23, 1970: "Of the 400 people who attended the Flint council [of the Weatherman group], fewer than 100 went underground. For those few, committed to the revolution above all else, it was a matter of logic. Community organizing had failed. Mass demonstrations had failed. Fighting in the streets had failed. Only terror was left." September 17, 1970: "She [Diana Oughton] never lost her gentleness, either, or her sense of morality; But consumed by revolutionary commitment, she became a terrorist, fully prepared to live as outlaw and killer." September 21, 1970: "The group's opponents argued that the Weathermen were repeating the errors of the 'Narodniki' (Russian terrorists) who assassinated the czar in 1881 and set back the cause of reform in Russia for decades."; Ayers, Bill, "Weather Underground Redux," post April 20, 2006, "Bill Ayers" blog, retrieved September 21, 2008: "This was a time when I, along with most of my closest friends, were referred to again and again as 'home-grown American terrorists'. That’s what Time magazine called us in 1970, and the New York Times, too, and that was the word hurled in my direction from the halls of Congress."


 * Toddst1 (talk) 14:48, 10 June 2013 (UTC)